


This Scarlet Witch

by arimabat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Introspection, Names, News Media, POV Wanda Maximoff, Politics, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson is a Saint, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 15:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15732228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arimabat/pseuds/arimabat
Summary: Some names, you don't get to choose. Some names are given to you. And the only thing you can do is figure out how you feel about it.Or: the one where Scarlet Witch is a new press nickname and Wanda talks to Sam about it.





	This Scarlet Witch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not quite sure where the idea of 'Scarlet Witch as an insulting media nickname' came from but I figured it was an interesting concept and allowed me to do a small dive into the weird and vague politics of the MCU, which I have some..... very nerdy opinions about.
> 
> Also, I like Wanda and Sam being friends. Find me a story that isn't improved by the presence of Sam Wilson, I dare you. Spoilers: it doesn't exist.

Wanda had taken the evening off to cry.

Most of the time, the focus was on bottling up all the emotions. Repressing them, because she had neither the time nor the energy to deal with them.

But - occasionally - she need to let them go. Because even Wanda Maximoff had to do that. Sometimes.

_Gather all the dark goo inside. Hold it very, very tight. Then… throw it out. Stupid goo, thinking it could stay inside you._

Were those Pietro’s words? Or her parents’? How was it possible that she couldn’t quite…

The shaky memories made the tears come easier.

 _Scarlet Witch_.

It was the smallest things that could make her mad. The most ridiculous things. She should be crying because of her brother and her parents and all the other dead people but right now, that was only background noise.

_She didn’t sign the Accords, did she? Because she’s fine with being a mass murderer. I think we should treat her the same way we should treat all terrorists and shoot to kill when we get the chance._

Just some idiot on the news. But of course, there were a thousand more like him.

_There’s all these rumours that this… Scarlet Witch, whatever we want to call her now, she’s got a grudge against the United States because something something America is bad… Whatever. When is the last time you heard about US interference in Sokovia? It’s insane that we ever let her operate in our country like she could be trusted._

How silly, that a stupid moniker could even upset her. But really, it was the picture that came with it. Wild eyes glowing red, her face swathed in dark shadows, a feral crouch as she summoned ‘magic’ to her hands. An illustration that had spread quickly. Used by a congressman in a tweet about the Sokovia Accords. Discussed in the nightly news. It “captures something about the spirit of the moment”. Because that’s what she was: a witch. Different.

_Miss Maximoff has exposed herself over and over again as a woman who fundamentally does not believe in the values of the United States. We don’t need that kind of person pretending to be on our side._

And once you start watching, it is so hard to stop.

_But if you look at that group - like really look at it, it’s clear that Maximoff is the bad apple here. And honestly, we can all just pray that Captain Rogers comes to his senses and realises that he has to get the hell away from - and pardon my French - the hell away from this witch._

It felt so petty, to even care about this. After everything that had happened… She had remembered the concerned faces of the others when they had stumbled across one of those clips during their research. They had quickly clicked away - _there’s no point in looking at this bullshit_ \- but they didn’t realise that she continued to watch. The interviews. The newscasts. The panels. And today, when they had found out by accident about the newest nickname for her… She had worked hard to keep her face very blank indeed.

_We’ve seen so much over the last few years. Is it really so crazy to ask whether she… I don’t know, got her powers from some kind of Satanic ritual? I think the title Scarlet Witch really - it really shows how she can be considered this kind of user of dark arts._

Okay, that one was just stupid. She smiled a little despite herself and then turned a sob into a weird giggle. It wasn’t really hard to picture herself in the middle of some chalk pentagram, loads of candles placed at certain spots and wafting around smoke from herbs… Maybe she make a photo of herself or a video of her chanting creepily in Latin and then post it online. Give people something to really talk about.

She sighed, still kind of crying but also frustrated with herself.

_You’re on the run. Why the hell do you care?_

Her brother’s voice, that was. Her mind did that sometimes, usually to berate her. Probably some kind of lesson there… But he was very good at telling her when she was being stupid.

 _You’re giving them too much power over you_.

But the point was that they _did_ have power. She was on the run, wasn’t she? And it’s not like this stuff was in anyway restricted to journalists or radio hosts or whatever. What was it that that American senator had recently said? “We need to ask whether the Sokovia Accords go far enough.” Yes, that was it.“It becomes a question of whether someone like that still really counts as ‘human’.”

At least there had been some outrage over that. But what an irony, that laws named after her country were used to question whether she was actually less than human.

She surprised herself with a particularly loud sob that dissolved into a weird, ugly cough. Not that anyone was here to hear it. They were all out on reconnaissance, which was precisely why she was doing this now.

Not that they weren’t great and supportive and of course she didn’t deserve them. Even though she did wish Clint was still there. He had seemed… the readiest to reach out to her. Which was all the stranger, considering she had subjected his teammates to what Loki had once done to him. She knew it was probably just misplaced guilt over Pietro. Still…

Was he under house arrest now because he had wanted to help her?

“Wanda?”

Oh no.

She twisted around, looking up in the direction of the door. Still sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the bed, it was hard to see in the dark room that was only lit by the moon outside. But there was light coming through the door from the next room. Which was meant to be empty.

The door opened a bit wider and Sam stood in its threshold, a clear silhouette in the bright light from outside that made her blink a few times as her eyes adjusted.

“You’re not meant to be here.” Way too harsh, way too blunt. But she had been caught off guard. Which was _not_ meant to happen.

Sam shrugged. “Can I come in?”

Her first instinct was to say no, to tell him to go away so that he didn’t see… But of course, he would have. He must have heard the sobs. And even if he couldn’t see her clearly, she was sitting on the floor in the dark when she thought she was alone. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she had been doing, and Sam was one hell of a sharp operator.

She should be stronger than this.

“Yeah,” she said.

She was about to move to stand up but Sam was already sitting down on the floor next to her, stretching his legs out with a slight grimace before crossing them.

They sat in silence, Wanda staring up out of the window where she could just about make out the occasional star. It was like he wasn’t there at all, and her mind continued raking over the memories of the things she had watched and read.

_She might be controlling Rogers’ mind. This man is an American hero, and he suddenly goes AWOL? Why is no one talking about this… this girl and the hold she has over Rogers?_

Wanda hiccuped and wondered whether they thought she was controlling Sam too. It didn’t bother her as much as she thought it would - that he was seeing her like this. It was because she was so used to his presence by now, of course. He had her back. Like Steve and Nat did too, but… Sometimes, they seemed so removed. They were these larger than life figures, legends before she had ever met them. Sam wasn’t ordinary by any measure, but somehow she felt like… Like he knew what normal was meant to look like.

They had trained together before everything fell apart again. Hadn’t been close, exactly, but had worked together enough that she didn’t feel uncomfortable around him. And he didn’t look at her like he was terrified of her. He managed not to jump when she was around.

Not that she could exactly blame people for being jumpy. Especially when she had messed with their minds.

And then, after Lagos… When she screwed up, screwed up so bad it was like the sun stopped shining and everything she thought she had escaped came rushing back, he stood with Steve but with her too. A simple hand on her shoulder. His eyes meeting hers, without reproach. No words, just the tacit understanding that he didn’t blame her. That if she needed something, he would be there.

“If you want me to beat up some congressman, you know you only have to ask, right?”

She looked up in surprise before a small giggle escaped her mouth. The tears had kind of dried out, but now for some absurd reason they came out again as she mixed laughing and crying. “That would probably be a bad idea.”

“Probably.”

“How did you…”

“You looked upset earlier.” At her frown, he shrugged again. “No one can hide everything. Or maybe it’s just me getting used to reading emotions of super spies and the like.”

“So you’re still here…”

“To check up on you. Bit underhanded, I know. If you think I’m overstepping, do feel free to tell me to piss off.”

She chuckled and shook her head a little. “I’m just being stupid.”

Sam stretched out his legs again and leaned back with the palms of his hands pressed against the floor. “You’re not. You already have incredibly thick skin. But sometimes stuff just… gets you. Not shocking.”

“But stupid.”

He turned his head so that he looked straight at her, expression grimmer than she might have expected. “I’m just going to say this again: what they’re saying is disgusting. And it’s inexcusable. And it’s in bad faith. That mightn’t be true of every supporter of those damn Accords, but it certainly is for them.”

“I _terrify_ them.”

She could just about make out Sam’s raised eyebrows and wondered whether he thought she was exaggerating. Picking up her phone from next to her, she opened one of the bookmarks she had saved and held out the phone so they could both see it.

_The elites telling us that there’s nothing to be scared of, that Maximoff is the victim here. Well let me tell you that they are wrong. You should be afraid! They let a witch into this country and pretended like there was nothing wrong with that. She walked on our streets past where your children play and where your grandmother goes grocery shopping. Just think if something had made her angry and she decided to level a building. The only scarlet there would have been the blood of your loved ones._

Wanda paused the clip, point made. She looked at Sam just before he started chuckling, and after a moment she couldn’t help but join in.

“I actually kind of like that,” he said. “You should put it on a T-shirt: _The only scarlet here will be the blood of your loved ones_.”

She started laughing properly at that. “It’s all so…”

“Crazy. Look, they’re trying to scare people. This - this shithead, he literally said it, didn’t he? _You should be afraid_ \- yeah, right. Pretty sure I’ve seen this guy before. Fearmongering is part of the job description for these people.”

She nodded, the thought soothing for an instant before the uncertainty came back. Maybe that had been a bad example because it was so clearly ridiculous, but… “But maybe…” she said out loud before trailing off, wondering whether she really should put voice to fears like those. Sam waited for her to go on, so eventually she managed to do so. “It’s not like they’re wrong, necessarily. I am dangerous.”

“Okay,” said Sam, once again surprising her. “You’re dangerous. Yeah. And?”

“People can’t really be expected to be fine with me running around free.”

“They weren’t complaining like this all the years Stark flew around their cities with literal missiles strapped to him.”

“Yeah, but…” She paused. “He signed the Accords.”

“This isn’t just about the Accords, though.” Sam frowned, pulling one of his legs in. “Stark gets away with a lot of stuff.”

“ _And_ he doesn’t get called a witch.”

“They’re assholes. And they’re wrong. About you, about so many things.”

“I know _that_. I was just… letting out all the dark goo.”

Sam raised his eyebrows.

“It’s just something my family used to tell me. That you have to gather all the dark stuff up and then let it out.”

“Which is what you were doing?”

“Yeah.”

Sam nodded. “Okay. That’s good. Just… You don’t need to feel like you have to do that alone.”

“It’s not…” She paused, not quite sure what she was objecting to. Sam stretched out his other leg, wincing a little. “Eh… do you maybe want to sit on the bed?”

“Would you mind?” asked Sam, looking pretty grateful at the suggestion. “It’s just… think I might have strained my ass or something.”

Wanda snorted and stood up before settling on the bed with her back pressed against a pillow. “You can _even_ turn on the light if you want.”

Sam did so and Wanda was still blinking in response to the change as he sat down next to him. “Okay, that is _way_ better.”

“Could have said something earlier,” she said with a little exasperation even as she wondered whether the tear tracks were still visible on her face.

“I was kind of intruding in _your_ space, though.”

She took out her phone again. Now that she had shown Sam one thing, it was really hard to resist the urge to share more. It was all so confusing - she was determined to keep it all locked up because she didn’t want to look weak but at the same time she kind of wanted to be comforted, to get the right responses from him. But then she was also scared that those wouldn’t be the responses he would give.

_And let me tell you how sick I am of the liberal media telling us how sad we should feel for Maximoff and her poor family. No, you know what the real tragedy here is? It is that American heroes, real American heroes, have been forced into a government straitjacket and stopped from doing their jobs properly because of this witch. There would be no Sokovia Accords without Wanda Maximoff because no one needed them before she showed up._

Wanda looked up a little nervously when the clip ended, waiting for Sam’s reaction.

“Is this the same guy?” said Sam, frowning at the small screen. “How is it that all these guys look exactly alike?”

She smiled slightly even as she bit into her lip. Sam _did_ have a point. “Do you think he’s right?”

“About you being responsible for the Sokovia Accords?” asked Sam. “Remind me, who created Ultron?” He sighed. “I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but you shouldn’t be watching those clips.”

He was right - she _didn’t_ want to hear that. It was the usual response: just look away, ignore that it’s happening, they’re just idiots. But that stuff was out there whether she watched it or not. And it wouldn’t go away just because she didn’t let it _get_ _to her_ or whatever.

Her frustration must have been visible because Sam put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him.

“I get why you’re doing it. And it’s not like I have some kind of miracle answer to how to deal with this stuff. Just because I’d prefer it if you didn’t watch this stuff at all, I do want to make it clear that if you _do_ watch it, you can always talk to me about it.”

“So what _do_ you think about it?” asked Wanda, with more than a little urgency to the question. “You can’t just say I didn’t create Ultron or whatever. But the Sokovia Accords… They were passed after Lagos. After _I_ screwed up.”

Sam was silent, clearly trying to figure out a response. While she waited, she remembered another clip. There were so many, weren’t there?

_We’re meant to have so much sympathy with this girl. I get it: Sokovia is a dump. But it’s not like she hasn’t hurt Sokovians too. Or like those people in Lagos deserved this._

She pulled her knees towards her waist, hugging them.

Funny how much they suddenly cared about Sokovians, wasn’t it? How much the people in Lagos meant to them. Funny really, because she couldn’t remember those people when her parents had died. Where had they been with their outrage and their condemnation? Where had they been when the missiles dropped from the sky?

People don’t care as much about corpses if they’re killed in the right way.

Not that this absolved her. That wasn’t… Just because _they_ were bad, that didn’t mean…

“I think some form of the Sokovia Accords were inevitable in the long run,” said Sam eventually. “And it’s not like I’m completely opposed to regulation in every form. But for them, it’s become this fundamental issue, this black and white question… And I think it’s important for you to understand… Captain America is famous everywhere. Of course. But in America, it’s crazy. This is a guy who was used as a symbol of virtue, especially for the generation right after the war. He’s just this kind of… this kind of unassailable good, this pinnacle of American exceptionalism… So imagine that guy suddenly coming back and disagreeing with them. The dissonance there must be incredible. And they needed a way of explaining that to themselves.”

This all sounded very smart and Wanda felt a tinge of jealousy at how well Sam seemed to understand these things. “So I’m a scapegoat.”

“Yeah, that’s it. The guy said it himself - they need their ‘real American heroes’.”

“Which I’m not.”

Sam shrugged. “Would you want to be?”

She felt a familiar surge of anger at the entire damn country. “No, I guess not.” That reminded her of something else. “I suppose that’s also why they enjoy going after Nat. Here -“ A few taps later, another clip.

_I think we have to ask ourselves how we can be so sure that Romanoff is really on our side. She used to work for the KGB as some sort of femme fatale and then she’s working for SHIELD, who we find out were undermining our elected government. So now, this Maximoff comes along and they’re basically from the same place and no one wonders how that happened?_

“ _Basically from the same place_ ,” muttered Sam darkly. “Can’t believe I’m going to waste all the effort we put into hiding ourselves by striding into a news station and punching one stupid pundit.”

“Well, Sokovia and Russia are pretty much the same,” said Wanda with a grin.

“A basic knowledge of geography?” said Sam, tone dry as sandpaper. “Not in my country!”

She kept grinning, but her thoughts were already straying down a darker path again. There was something… “Do you have any regrets?” she asked, before instantly wondering whether it was too personal a question.

Sam folded his arms and stared at the opposite wall with narrowed eyes, like he usually did when he was thinking. “You mean, about this whole mess? Or life in general, or…”

“Both. Either.” She shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment. “I don’t know. Just…” She didn’t actually know what she had meant, so tried a somewhat different approach. “D’you think you’d be happier if you hadn’t gotten involved in all this?”

“What, if I’d never met Steve?”

“Yeah. Or if you’d never joined the Avengers.”

Sam snorted. “To be honest, the moment I met Steve my fate was probably sealed. Kinda hard to walk away from Captain America.”

She smiled and stared at the same spot of the wall Sam had been focusing on.

But now Sam was considering her with a concentration that suggested he was trying to figure something out. “It’s not just that, is it? This is about whether we’re doing the right thing. About whether being an Avenger is… good.”

That wasn’t quite it, but there was something… “I have messed up _so_ many times. And so many people are dead because of me. Then I try to turn over a new leaf and it’s just -“ She choked on her words and Sam put a hand on her shoulder again. “Maybe I was an idiot for thinking I could put the past behind me.”

“No one here blames you.”

“Maybe they should,” she said, words falling out quickly. “I volunteered for those experiments. Because I wanted revenge. And then what I did with Stark’s mind, that led to Ultron, and then in Johannesburg…” She closed her eyes, willing the tears to stay back. “Banner would never have turned into the Hulk if I hadn’t…”

“Wanda…”

“Don’t tell me it’s not my fault,” she said, anger rising in her.

“I wasn’t going to.”

She opened her eyes in order to look at him in surprise. “So it _is_ my fault?”

“I didn’t say that either.”

A small groan. “Sam. I don’t have the energy for riddles.”

He snorted. “It’s not a riddle. It’s just complicated. Which means I’m not just prepared to condemn you, even if you want me to. Things can be bad without… without just assuming the person doing them was bad or is bad.”

“You’re making my head hurt.”

“That might be the crying.”

Wanda scowled at him, making him grin.

“Redemption, rehabilitation, whatever you want to call it… It _is_ a thing, you know. Again, I refer you back to one Stark, who made his living from selling arms until not so long ago.”

“Yeah. I know,” said Wanda darkly.

“Yeah. And then Ultron… Look, I’m not going to say it was okay what you did. I’m really not. You didn’t know what your actions would lead to, but that doesn’t excuse them.”

“So…”

“So go ahead and feel guilty. But you _did_ turn over a new leaf, didn’t you?”

“Which led to Lagos.”

“Yeah. Again, something you can definitely feel guilty about. We all need to question our actions, right?”

“Is that enough? Sure, I’m a mass murderer but at least I feel bad about it?” she asked, tone taking a turn to the scathing.

“This is probably going to sound kind of terrible but… it’s sort of a risk you’re taking signing up. Fighting some of the worst threats imaginable, people are going to get hurt. And sometimes it’ll be your fault. So should you stop doing it?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s the choice you have to make. And not just once. Again and again.”

“Sounds stressful.”

“Guess that’s life.”

Wanda wasn’t quite sure whether to frown or to raise her eyebrows so ended up just going for a kind of half-pout. “Crying was less depressing than this conversation.”

“Ooh,” he said with such mock hurt that she couldn’t help but laugh. He clutched at his heart. “ _That_ burned. Damn, Wanda.” He grew more serious again after a moment. “But we do all need to figure out how to deal with this… healthily, I guess. What you saw today was some assholes demonising you. And honestly, fuck them. But it’s not all that simple. You’re not either an angel or the literal devil. And you deserve to enjoy life even if you’re not absolutely perfect.”

“Deep.”

“Sometimes I get lucky,” said Sam, staring up at the ceiling as he sat slumped back against his pillow. He inhaled through his teeth, then straightened up. “Okay, think that’s probably as much heavy stuff as either of us can deal with for one evening. Wanna watch a movie?”

“When are Steve and Nat coming back?”

“Dunno, don’t care.”

“Did they know you were going to…”

“They noticed too, you know.”

She must have been far more obvious than she thought.

“So how about it?”

Wanda nodded, summoning a smile. Yeah, that sounded good.

It felt like she had gotten rid of a lot of the dark goo. And that meant she had been successful.

Yet even as she sat with her friend, her thoughts wandered back to that name. A name that marked her as different, as dangerous. Which is what she had wanted, once. That had changed. Her anger had burnt itself out, leaving in its ashes something entirely different. But she was no less different, and no less dangerous. That had stayed the same.

This Scarlet Witch.

There were worse names, really.

**Author's Note:**

> (In a weird way, this is a very, very loose prequel to [Look At Me Now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15562569/chapters/36128679) in that it deals with some of the same issues with the same characters but with a completely different focus. Mainly just more angst about guilt and deserving happiness, which is always fun.)
> 
> I love comments! Also check out my [Tumblr](https://arimabat.tumblr.com) & thanks for reading!


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